Norma Vasquez

“As I watched the sun come up on the horizon, I could clearly see the thickness of our atmosphere. What I saw during those few seconds really surprised me, because the atmosphere looked scarily thin! To think that this is the only thing that is keeping us alive made me an instant environmentalist. I guess I was always conscientious of our environment, but seeing the planet from that perspective made me realize how fragile our planet is and that we should be good stewards of our environment.”
― José M. Hernández, From Farmworker to Astronaut / De campesino a astronauta: My Path to the Stars / Mi viaje a las estrellas

“The only moral, meaningful course for a civilization facing its own end: To learn how to ask forgiveness and to atone in some tiny measure for the devastating harm we had done to our human family and to our fellow creatures and to the beautiful earth. To love and forgive one another as best we could. And to learn how to say goodbye.”
― Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through

“I already knew the power of language to destroy, to omit, to obliterate. But poetry, the power of language to restore: this was what both Athos and Kostas were trying to teach me.”
― Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

“Was it really possible that Americans would elect to the highest office in the land, to the most powerful position on earth, a person so manifestly unfit, so brazenly immoral and corrupt, a person who lied with every breath and was a complete incompetent to boot? Never had my neighbor’s faith in humanity been so shaken.”
― Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through